Hello, Mr. Jellyfish

by Richard Peacock

Who doesn't love jellyfish? Communists. That's who. But we in the free countries of the Earth just love the little critters. We love watching their sleek bodies undulate as they swim. We love their playful personalities when they see passing boats. We love feeding them handfuls of anchovies at Sea World. Oh wait-- those are dolphins. Then what the hell are jellyfish? Perhaps this poem will educate me...

Hello, Mr. Jellyfish

Hello, Mr. Jellyfish.
I promise I won't bite.
I'd give you a kiss right on your crown
If not for your cnidocytes.
Those stinging cells
Surely help repel
Creatures that want to eat you.
But even still, I'll shake your hand
To prove I'm pleased to meet you.



Tell me, Dr. Jellinstein,
Could you prescribe a pill?
I just cannot concentrate
From the excitement that I feel.
Your morphology is just so cool,
I can't believe it's real.
And tell me how do you get so big
Eating just fish and little krill?

You start your life just like a plant,
Anchored to the ground,
But instead of flowers that you sprout,
You bud off free-swimming crowns!
And when those medusas fully mature,
They take themselves a wife,
But sadly after mating,
That's the end of their short life.*



The little baby that results
From their romantic night at sea,
Finds a spot on the sandy floor
And anchors for security.
So thus the cycle then repeats
For the little jelly children,
Which will one day swim and take a mate
Deep within the briny ocean.

Oh, Señora Gelatina,
How you tempt me with your polypoid stage.
But I shan't be taken in again
By your fickle, tentacled ways.
I shall have to be content
To admire you from afar.
Because you, my jellyfish of the seven seas,
Are grander than the grandest star (fish).

*While most jellyfish only live a couple months, there is one species, Turritopsis nutricula, that actually re-enters its younger polyp stage after reproducing, and repeats the cycle again. This effectively makes the species immortal. It is the only known case of an animal which can completely revert to a colonial, sexually immature stage from a mature solitary form.

The Multiverse is written by Richard Peacock, who generally doesn't know what he's talking about, and will gladly sacrifice scientific accuracy for the sake of a rhyme. Send rhyming complaints to richard@amateurscientist.org